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Now, who do you think we should we listen to: Marco Rubio or Theodore Roosevelt?

A heavy progressive tax upon a very large fortune is in no way such a tax upon thrift or industry as a like would be on a small fortune. No advantage comes either to the country as a whole or to the individuals inheriting the money by permitting the transmission in their entirety of the enormous fortunes which would be affected by such a tax; and as an incident to its function of revenue raising, such a tax would help to preserve a measurable equality of opportunity for the people of the generations growing to manhood.

Or how about Thomas Jefferson?

Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they rise.

Obviously, Teddy Roosevelt and Thomas Jefferson were Saul Alinsky types who wanted to transform America into a socialist dystopia.

For some reason, the media refuses to point out that the GOP has become radicalized to the point that the very notion of a progressive tax -- which has been in place since World War One -- is offensive to them.

A party which wants to repeal the 20th century isn't "conservative" -- it's radical. That needs to be repeated again and again and again.

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Despite having a total wingnut for a governor, Florida is a purple state. So I always thought Newt would have a hard time pulling it out there, and it looks like in the wake of last night's debate, he's in big trouble.

Just four days before the nation's first big-state presidential primary, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney opens up a 38 - 29 percent lead over former House Speaker Newt Gingrich among Republican likely voters in Florida, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today. Only 6 percent are undecided, but 32 percent say they might change their mind by Tuesday.

This compares to results of a January 25 survey by the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN- uh-pe-ack) University, showing Romney with 36 percent of likely primary voters to Gingrich's 34 percent. Wednesday's survey showed Gingrich ahead 40 - 34 percent among voters surveyed after the South Carolina primary.

It appears that the all-out war waged against Newt by the likes of Ann Coulter, Bob Dole, Elliot Abrams, George Will, Marco Rubio and Tom DeLay is having some effect.

Why should we care about Marco Rubio embellishing the tale of his parent's immigration? Because it really does matter. It carries a great deal of significance not only in the Cuban communities in Florida, but across the nation.

Rubio has presented himself as an exile for very specific reasons. He wants the narrative that he fled political oppression to come to this country and make something of himself without bootstraps. He has painted his family as political refugees, when in fact, they're economic refugees just like 99.9 percent of the other immigrants in this country.

A simple embellishment for political gain. After all, how could Rubio be anti-immigrant if he descends from an immigrant family? How could Rubio possibly identify with Latino immigrants as a conservative without changing his own history? Just a little date change and he becomes part of something he and his family never were.

Rubio's response when the story hit the airwaves was to push back with this:

I now know that they entered the U.S. legally on an immigration visa in May of 1956. Not, as some have said before, as part of some special privilege reserved only for Cubans. They came because they wanted to achieve things they could not achieve in their native land.

That paragraph summarizes the essence of why many have come to this country, including Mexican immigrants who have literally risked their lives to enter this country. There is only one difference between the children of Rubio's parents and the children of Latino immigrants all around this country, and it's a significant one. Those immigrants are being threatened, demonized, tossed into privatized prison systems and deported because our immigration policy is practically non-existent. No family from Mexico could present themselves at an immigration office, apply for a visa and declare their intent to stay permanently simply because they wanted opportunity. Political exiles might have a chance, but not those who were simply choosing to immigrate.

By claiming this...

I am the son of immigrants and exiles, raised by people who know all too well that you can lose your country. By people who know firsthand that America is a very special place.

...Rubio flatly lied. His parents came to this country in 1956 looking for economic opportunity. They declared at that time they intended to stay permanently. The fact that Castro came to power in 1959 makes a nice excuse to claim his parents were exiles, but it's simply not true. They came here looking for opportunity and assumed they'd be able to return to Cuba for visits whenever they could. Castro complicated the latter, but didn't change the former.

Marco Rubio is just like every immigrant family -- Latino, Irish, Italian, Pakistani or otherwise -- who comes to this country seeking opportunity and a better life. The only difference is that Marco Rubio has allied with political forces who don't want the same for anyone else. He altered his family history to fit a politically expedient narrative and has ridden it farther than he should have.

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The Washington Post exposes Marco Rubio's faulty family story: Marco Rubio’s compelling family story embellishes facts, documents show

During his rise to political prominence, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) frequently repeated a compelling version of his family’s history that had special resonance in South Florida. He was the son of exiles, he told audiences, Cuban Americans forced off their beloved island after “a thug,” Fidel Castro, took power.

But a review of documents — including naturalization papers and other official records — reveals that Rubio’s dramatic account of his family saga embellishes the facts. The documents show that Rubio’s parents came to the United States and were admitted for permanent residence more than 21 / 2 years before Castro’s forces overthrew the Cuban government and took power on New Year’s Day 1959.

It looks like Rubio embellished his family's plight for political gain.

In 2006, on the eve of his ascendancy to speaker of the Florida House of Representatives, Rubio told an audience that “in January of 1959 a thug named Fidel Castro took power in Cuba and countless Cubans were forced to flee and come here, many – most – here to America. When they arrived they were welcomed by the most compassionate people on all the Earth.”

Wearing a red flower in his lapel, his voice sometimes emotional, he praised those who fled, calling them “a great generation.” But he also assured them: “Today your children and grandchildren are the secretary of commerce of the United States and multiple members of Congress, they are the CEO of Fortune 500 companies and successful entrepreneurs, they are Grammy winning artists and they are renowned journalists, they are a United States senator and soon, even speaker of the Florida House.” The speech drew heavy coverage in Florida, for it was a momentous event. Rubio was the first Cuban American to become speaker of the House in the Florida Legislature...read on

And now it looks like Orly Taitz' group of fanatics are doing us some good for a change.

Miami Herald:

Unable to prevent Barack Obama from becoming president, rigid followers of the Constitution have turned their attention to another young, charismatic politician many think could one day occupy the White House. The birthers are focusing on U.S. Sen Marco Rubio, the budding Republican star from Florida.
“It’s nothing to do with him personally. But you can’t change the rules because you like a certain person. Then you have no rules,” said New Jersey lawyer Mario Apuzzo. Forget about the alleged Photoshopped birth certificates; the activists are not challenging whether Rubio was born in Miami. Rather, they say Rubio is ineligible under Article 2 of the Constitution which says “no person except a natural born citizen … shall be eligible to the Office of President.”

The rub is that “natural born citizen” was never defined. The birthers rely on writings at the time of the formation of the republic and references in court cases since then to contend that “natural born” means a person born to U.S. citizens. Rubio was born in 1971 at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital, his office said, but his parents did not become citizens until 1975. “Marco Rubio was born a Cuban citizen via his parents,” screams a headline on a blog by birther Charles Kerchner, who obtained copies of the naturalization petitions by Rubio’s parents in May, igniting talk that is spreading across the Web.

I can't lie and say that I'm not enjoying this, but isn't he covered under the 14th amendment? At least these people are staying consistent with their weirdness. Rubio, who said that Social Security/Medicare Make Us Lazy has been a tea party hero.

Rush Limbaugh anointed Rubio as the next big deal in the GOP so I wonder if he'll step in and target one of his big constituencies, the Birthers. Who knew that WND would serve a useful purpose after all.

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So the beltway media has been abuzz this week about Senator Marco Rubio’s increasing national profile. Reporters have been experiencing a case of “starbursts” through their keyboards. They wrote up a slobbering profile of the freshman GOP Senator. Then just days ago Rubio gave a speech at the Ronald Reagan library.

What is happening here is pretty obvious to anyone who wants to cut through the BS. Helpfully Dave Weigel tells us the obvious:

1) Buttered-up profile pieces. Easily done. The Reagan speech got Rubio a McClatchy storyabout how Nancy Reagan personally beckoned him to Simi Valley. "You’ve been identified as someone to watch on the national political scene," she said, giving future Rubio-profile-writers an insta-quote for the beginning of the what-people-are-saying section. From McClatchy, we also learn that John Boehner quoted Rubio, and that this is significant.

2) Scene pieces. See the Frank story for that. Most of the early coverage of Rubio's speech informed us that 1) he gave a speech, 2) the crowd was huge, and 3) he helped up Nancy Reagan when she stumbled.

3) Micro policy news. In the debt speech, Rubio, who had not taken a lead role in the debt limit debate, staked his position: There could be no putting off the "day of reckoning." In Simi Valley, he came out for a gradual Social Security phase-out.

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Tea Partiers and Conservatives live in their own reality, especially when it comes to numbers. They find an easily digestible sound-byte line and they repeat it into the ground. Florida's Marco Rubio, or Mr. Tea Party, refused to back Paul Ryan's budget mess when asked if he supported it on MTP and then made up his own numbers pertaining to Medicare and what the Ryan budget actually does. David Gregory asked Rubio questions and instead of answering him outright, he deflected the question and said he's for anything that will fix the budget. Oh, where's the love? Here's the CBO on RyanCare:

Under the proposal, most elderly people would pay more for their health care than they would pay under the current Medicare system. For a typical 65-year-old with average health spending enrolled in a plan with benefits similar to those currently provided by Medicare, CBO estimated the beneficiary’s spending on premiums and out-of-pocket expenditures as a share of a benchmark: what total health care spending would be if a private insurer covered the beneficiary. By 2030, the beneficiary’s spending would be 68 percent of that benchmark under the proposal, 25 percent under the extended-baseline scenario, and 30 percent under the alternative fiscal scenario. … CBO estimates that average spending in traditional Medicare will be 89 percent of (that is, 11 percent less than) the spending that would occur if that same package of benefits was purchased from a private insurer.

Rubio makes up magical numbers to defend cuts to Medicare and said that Ryan's budget actually increased funding to Medicare while sticking to the previously debunked notion that HCR will cut 500 billion out of Medicare.

Rubio: The Ryan plan doesn't cut Medicare, it actually increases funding in it and the only people in this town that have voted to cut medicare that are the people who supported Obamacare, that cut half a trillion dollars for the next ten years from medicare.

Political Correction has all the details of that lie:

FactCheck.org: Cost Saving Provisions "Not A Slashing Of The Current Medicare Budget Or Benefits." According to FactCheck.org: "Whatever you want to call them, it's a $500 billion reduction in the growth of future spending over 10 years, not a slashing of the current Medicare budget or benefits. It's true that those who get their coverage through Medicare Advantage's private plans (about 22 percent of Medicare enrollees) would see fewer add-on benefits; the bill aims to reduce the heftier payments made by the government to Medicare Advantage plans, compared with regular fee-for-service Medicare. The Democrats' bill also boosts certain benefits: It makes preventive care free and closes the 'doughnut hole,' a current gap in prescription drug coverage for seniors." [FactCheck.org, 3/19/10]

Screaming that Medicare is going broke must be Frank Luntz' instructions to Conservative since that's all Rubio kept coming back to. But that ignores the second half of the sentence: "...under current revenue structures." How does privatizing this system (which then builds in corporate profits rather than the pay for service system now) make things better? What happens to seniors who can't afford the additional costs imposed upon them by the Ryan plan? Proposing ludicrous ideas are not brave.

Jonathan Chait debunks Paul Ryan in an interview he conducted with the Wisconsin Congressman in a post called: Debunking Paul Ryan's Latest Spin

John Cohn takes apart the idea that Ryan's plan would even decrease the federal deficit one iota.

“Only” is a slightly misleading term here, since $4.5 trillion dollars would still represent a large spending cut. But wait! The House Republican budget also calls for tax cuts—$4.2 trillion of them. In other words, the tax cuts in the House Republican budget would very nearly offset the spending cuts, leaving just $380 billion in additional savings over ten years.

It would be nice if our beltway media would arm themselves with enough facts about this entire debate so that when Conservatives lie about the numbers they could actually correct them on the spot and not at a later date or if ever. I know it's a bit complicated, but letting lies go unchallenged is not an option either.

Marco Rubio stiffed the new Tea Party Caucus in the Senate, and so did almost all the Conservatives who were elected in November:

Although dozens of Republicans sailed into office with the help of the conservative "tea party" movement last year, finding a self-identified "tea party Republican" on Capitol Hill is harder than you'd think. The first meeting of the Senate Tea Party Caucus on Thursday attracted just four senators — out of 47 GOP members — willing to describe themselves as members. The event was as notable for who wasn't there as who was.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), once a tea party favorite, has for now declined to join the caucus, whose first meeting was organized by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) Sen. Ron Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican whose campaign sprung from the small-government movement, has said he's unsure if he'll join. Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) showed up to address the group of activists, but then hustled out of the room, ignoring reporters' questions about whether he was in or out.

The reluctance shows how the purposefully disjointed movement and its crop of outspoken and controversial leaders, although a powerful force in the campaign that spurred Republicans to a big midterm victory, are still viewed as risky allies even for conservative politicians. With the rhetoric of the campaign now translating into debate over politically painful budget cuts, the tea party agenda looks less like the hub of Republican energy in Congress and more like an endpoint of the spectrum.

Lawrence O'Donnell had on Judson Phillips from the Tea Party Nation yesterday, and he asked him why these newly elected Tea Partiers refused to join the new coalition. Judson was evasive -- and as we've seen with The Tea Party Stepford Bots so far, they will apologize, rationalize and make excuses for their newly minted leaders until the cows come home. O'Donnell thinks it's a significant development, because in the Senate you need unity and deal-making to get things done, and this shows a breakdown in their alignment. I agree and disagree. Yes, Rubio stiffed them and that's significant because he was the initial poster boy for the Tea Party movement, but I want to offer a word of caution about this.

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John Boehner's economic speech yesterday offered a golden opportunity for Democrats to ridicule, rebut, and remind everyone about who is really responsible for this shaky economy.

In what could possibly be one of the best speech edits ever, Ed Schultz lays out exactly what Boehner said: Nothing. Well, Boehner did tell everyone what he thought the President should do, and he said something about putting the adults in charge, too. My retort to that would be to suggest that he get out of the bars and the golf courses long enough to think straight, but that's just me.

The CBO had its own retort to this:

All this 'stimulus' spending has gotten us nowhere.

CBO says, "OhReally?"

Steve Benen:

First, as a real-world matter, economic growth was pretty slow in the second quarter (April to June), but the CBO report makes clear that without the stimulus, it wouldn't have grown at all. In other words, a stimulus helped lead to tepid growth -- the absence of a stimulus would have been significant economic contraction.

Second, this CBO data, like reports from the Council of Economic Advisors and the Office of Management and Budget, should effectively end the debate about whether the Recovery Act did what it set out to do. The stimulus effort was too small -- criticism from conservative Republicans is completely backwards -- but as designed, it was intended to give the economy a significant boost, and save and create millions of jobs. It did exactly that. Anyone who argues otherwise is either not paying attention or is being willfully dishonest.

What? TanMan dishonest? Say it isn't so!

Everyone sing along now:

The stimulus worked.
It really, really worked.
It could have worked better
If it was bigger,
But it still really
Worked.

Meanwhile, Boehner should be watching his back right now, because Eric Cantor hasn't made any secret out of his heart's desire to replace Nancy Pelosi, even while murmuring soft whispers of support for his orange counterpart. While Boehner may be today's minority leader, the Club for Growth is not all that happy with him (or Cantor, for that matter).

Of course, Club for Growth funds candidates like hand-picked Rove choice Tim Griffin, Rand Paul, Pat Toomey and Marco Rubio, so give their disapproval of Boehner and Cantor the full weight it deserves. Then consider helping Justin Coussoule send Boehner to the golf course for good?

It looks like Marco Rubio has a bit of a PR problem. A couple of problems, actually. It seems he may have spent some Florida Republican Party funds on himself and his family for personal things instead of paying attention to the laws and limits on what he's allowed to bill on his expense account.

Marco Rubio's high-flying Senate campaign hit its first significant turbulence today as the former state House speaker defended using a Republican Party of Florida credit card for more than $100,000 in travel and other expenses from 2006 to 2008.

Rubio said the $109,618 he charged the party was for legitimate expenses he incurred while traversing Florida to raise money for the GOP, support its candidates and promote property tax reform. He also billed the state party for his trip to the 2008 Republican National Convention in Minneapolis after being asked to speak at "several events" as a representative of Florida's delegation, a Rubio spokesman said.

Well, that sounds about right. In fact, compared to some campaign disclosures I've seen this week, it might even be on the low end. Except for this, anyway:

In addition to the expenses Rubio charged to the GOP, Rubio said he used the party credit card for $16,053 in personal expenses that he paid for from his own pocket.

Yeah, not so much, because there's this:

The GOP also paid $1,000 to help repair Rubio's minivan after it was damaged by parking attendants at a Republican function, Burgos said.

The rules for party expense accounts really aren't that tough: If you submit hotel, travel and meal receipts, they have to be tied to an official party event. If you purchase supplies or equipment, they need to belong to the party, not your kids.

If your van is sideswiped in valet parking while you're attending an official party event, that expense needs to be submitted to your insurance company as an official claim. It doesn't get to go on the party American Express card. That's part of the cost of doing business in this free enterprise world of ours.

Rubio's status as the newest darling of the far right and teabag set earned him a place at CPACs podium, where he shared his naked hopes and dreams. I re-read his speech tonight with an eye to his alleged use of the GOP dime. The irony, it drips:

They [Liberals] think that the free-enterprise system is unfair, that a few people make a lot of money, and the rest of us get left behind. They believe that the only way business can make its money is by exploiting its workers and its customers.

Or...exploiting one's sponsor.

Our campaign finance system bites, and no group is better at gaming it than the Republicans. If former State House Speaker Sansom hadn't been quite so greedy, it would likely have been business as usual in Florida and just about everywhere else.

I downloaded Rubio's federal campaign disclosures for his race against Crist to see what spending was taking place there. Unfortunately I can't link it up here because it was faxed or scanned instead of entered as an electronic record. Still, there were some interesting tidbits. I don't really know what they represent, but they don't feel like campaign expenses, necessarily.

• $1,500 "registration fee" to St. John Neumann School
• Sandy Hook Fish & Rib House: $2340 (Travel)
• George P. Bush [sic]: $265.80 (Travel)
• Jess Yescalis: $3,789.79 (Travel)

These are the ones that jumped out at me after a few minutes. While they may be perfectly justifiable and completely in line with activities of his campaign, they seemed high to me, and I don't really see how the school fee fits in there at all.

I also took a look at the Florida Republican Party March 31st Federal report. On January 12th, $34,756.78 was paid to American Express. Here are some of the expenses charged to the party by the cardholder. I don't know who held or used the card, because the report doesn't match it up with a person.

• VIP Travel & Tours: $550
• Amazon.com: $1,396.69
• Citrus Center Parking: $219.84 (how long was that car parked there?)
• Dell Computer: $6,087.75
• Apple Computer Store: $10,329.75
• Lenovo: $1,878.72
• Delta Airlines: $4,246.60 (First-class, anyone?)
• Other miscellaneous items like tolls, miscellaneous air travel tickets, pizza, rental cars, and 1-800-Flowers.com make up the difference.

Sounds like a geek's paradise there, doesn't it? Whatever it is, it doesn't seem particularly...conservative.

Marco Rubio was on Morning Joe and, as all good conservatives do, he bashed entitlements such as Social Security and Medicare. Like good conservatives, he says they have to be reformed, but Joe never asked him how he would reform either of them and he didn't offer up any solutions either. He knows most Americans will not put up with anyone cutting those programs.

I have a solution for you: How about raising taxes on the rich? I think 95% of the country will really like that approach. Or, maybe stop funneling $700 billion dollars a year into the War Machine and $65 billion a year into the two wars we are in now. I think many people would like that also.

Rubio also said he never heard Beck call Obama a racist and wouldn't distance himself from Glenn Beck when Scarborough asked him if he would do so.

Funny how these Republicans never manage to hear their fellow right-wingers when they come unhinged, but love to whine about how nasty liberals are, isn't it?